planning

Chapters, Seasons and Goals

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When someone calls me to say she’s been stuck in her goals lately, I first ask her: What season are you in?

But I also should ask: What chapter are you in?

Both words, chapter and season, translate the same to Arabic, which might confuse people I ask because when I say it in Arabic, it could be a weather season or a book chapter.

What I mean by this question is what life chapter you’re in.

Is it the chapter of a new job, a new baby, a new home, or a new country? Is it the chapter of in-between jobs, in-between countries, in-between homes, or the chapter of ordinary-nothing-new life? Could it be the chapter of grief or a sick partner or parent?

These life chapters affect the kind of goals you can achieve.

Sometimes, we set our goals according to the chapter we just left as if nothing changed, so our plans no longer work.

Sometimes, we treat new chapters as if they did not happen and still expect the same from ourselves, or worse, we beat ourselves up if we do not achieve the desired results.

Seasons, on the other hand, are different; seasons are cyclical, which means each season will end soon, followed by the other.

At companies, there is the closing of the annual targets season, the objectives and performance reviews season, and the new launches season, among others.

Creatively, I go through seasons of introspection, deep reflection, and writing in my morning pages, then seasons of massive creative output.
For example, last year, I wrote about writing in seasons, which works perfectly for me because it felt like the permission slip I needed to give myself.

I adapted my creative output to mother nature’s cycle and my social and family life seasons. I don’t create workshops or launch courses in the summer; I spend time with my family. Believe me, I tried and learned the hard way that taking courses in summer doesn’t work for my life and probably the same for my target audience. Back-to-school season, however, means back to goals. As Jon Acuff says, September is the slingshot month of the year, just like January.

Physically, I try to adapt my work tasks according to my internal seasons based on my menstrual cycle because I have seen the impact of listening to my body on my life in the past few years. For example, tracking my cycle, helps me define the type of tasks that will feel easier for me each week; if I were in my internal fall season (premenstrual), then editing, analysis, finishing, following up, closing open loops, and decluttering would be ideal tasks.

All these reflections were sparked from listening to an excellent podcast episode by Peter and Jen about chapters where Peter mentioned he is in the chapter of (new dad) and feels it has impacted everything he thinks about. They highlighted that it’s good to remember that chapters end if you’re in the thick of a challenging one and to appreciate the people who are still with you as you close and open life chapters.

Always check whether your ambitious goals make sense for your life chapter and season, and plan accordingly.

It is an act of self-love.

Which chapter/season are you in?

Chapters, Seasons and Goals

How to choose what to focus on before the end of the year?

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Use your feelings:

  • What would be a relief to get over with before the end of the year? 
  • What is something don’t you want to be talking about planning to do next year? Instead, you want to say it’s done!

Use joy and regret:

  • Joy: Yes! It would be great to get this done. 
  • Regret: I would regret not getting this done now!

Use the calendar:

  • Is there an event you want to be ready for?
  • Is there an externally-imposed deadline that you need to meet?  

If you listed several answers, let these questions help you prioritize :

  • Is there a sense of urgency, time-sensitive or otherwise?
  • Did you promise to do it? 
  • Are you expected to do it?
  • Is it required by your management? 
  • What is at stake if you don’t get it done? 

Tip: Replace (the end of the year) with the end of the week/month/quarter, your Birthday, Christmas, Ramadan, or trip. You get the picture. 

How to choose what to focus on before the end of the year?

Is it the right time?

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Years ago, I used to buy courses to do in summer and then feel bad about not finishing them. I thought that I was the kind of person who did not finish what she had started.

As I became more reflective and also self-forgiving, I knew better. I realized that, in most cases, it was all about timing. 

Choosing the right time to do courses matters a lot. Choosing the right time to start habits matters a lot. Choosing the right time to work on your goals matters a lot.

Continue reading “Is it the right time?” →
Is it the right time?

Tips to Make the Most of Your Weekends

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A rejuvenating weekend is key to a productive work/school week ahead.

Here are some tips to prepare for your weekends.

  1. Check the weather; sunny weekends call for different plans than rainy ones. 
  2. Keep your partner or family members updated on your upcoming weekend plans at least two days ahead of the weekend and check in on their plans. I talk with my husband about the weekend on Wednesdays and let him know what I have in mind or already planned. If I have a morning of appointments or a night out with girlfriends planned out, he will make plans too. The same goes the other way around. 
  3. If you’re in the mood to go out somewhere nice as a couple, explicitly ask your partner and not leave it to chance. 
  4. Check IMDb ratings before watching a movie to have a pleasant movie night experience. 
  5. Check the expected homework load for the kids, which could impact family outings. In our household, we try to do most of the homework on weekends to have more leisurely evenings on school nights.
  6. As much as possible, run your errands and appointments and shop for groceries on weekends, preferably in the morning. This way, you’ll get done faster and relieve yourself from wasting precious evenings during the workweek. 
  7. Make sure visiting your parents, if geographically possible, is accounted for in your weekend plans. 

Weekends constitute 29% of your week. A well-spent weekend can renew your family bonds and help you make significant progress in your personal or home projects. 

Plan wisely.

Tips to Make the Most of Your Weekends

What reminders do you keep visible?

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I love goals cards that I recommend creating to keep your goals visible throughout the year. I also keep my Word of the Year and affirmations written on cards in front of me. I actually have one affirmations card for work, right below my computer screen, and another one for my personal life which I keep at my home office. Some people keep a copy of their vision boards on their mirrors or their closet’s door or enjoy positive post-it reminders scattered around the places they hang out most. I keep the steps of my check-in and check-out work rituals stuck to the left side of my screen to read them and make sure I cover all steps for better workdays.

The thing with these visual reminders, however, is that they fade to serve their purpose with time; we get so used to seeing them every day that they blend into the furniture. So, we stop reading them, even subconsciously, dare I say. Or the ink literllay fades.

What to do instead?

Keep your goals and words and affirmations visible; that’s key, but change them up to stay connected to them. Now and then, relocate them, rewrite them in different colors, or use another color of post-its. Do what you need to help your brain re-notice them.

At the beginning of each new quarter this year, I will rewrite my annual work goals, my affirmations, and of course, write my updated personal goals for the new quarter.

Today, I am ready to rewrite my check-in and check-out work routines that have been there for months, and I plan to renew them in the second half of the year. I think that should do it.

What about you?

What important reminders do you keep visible in your environment?

What reminders do you keep visible?

What does an intentional day look like?

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A powerful, productive day filled with intentional action starts the night before. When you sleep with the intention of waking up early to take care of your physical, mental and spiritual life before starting your day’s work.

First thing in the day, you put your priorities on your schedule by dividing your time into blocks of focus, administrative work, communication and breaks and try your best to commit to them. When you get interrupted by an unplanned meeting or new urgent task, you check your schedule and see what you can shift to accommodate this new task. Such a day doesn’t have room for questions like “what should I do next?” Next is already planned. It does not allow for going into a rabbit hole of open tabs and app notifications.

While working, your phone is silent and only important calls can get through. You listen to great focus-inducing music, without lyrics, obviously, to avoid triggering distracting thoughts and emotions.

If you feel you are avoiding a boring but must-do task that does not need your brain power but just some time to finish, you make it more fun by playing upbeat music or great podcasts to accompany you.

You take breaks. You stretch your legs. You have lunch with your colleagues and talk about nonwork stuff, you go for a short walk and come back refreshed. You end the work day by following a ritual that makes sure you close all open loops, marking what’s next for each project you worked on exactly to get you started the next day easily.

I believe you can reset your day whenever you choose to. I always feel that a quick call with a friend and a short walk could work like a restart button for my day, especially when I get stuck in a fire-fighting mode or in unproductive thoughts.

Keeping your planned schedule in front of you can also help guard your time and get it back on track. You can begin your day anew by saying no to interruptions or new requests when possible, or by delaying your response until you are done with your most important work.

As someone smart said, other people’s lack of planning does not have to be your emergency.

What does an intentional day look like?

Reflections on GTD

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Preparing for the Live session I hosted recently about GTD, it was fascinating for me to remember the first time I got in touch with Getting Things Done methodology, when I downloaded the audiobook online and listened to it on the mp3 USB player in my car.

It made so much sense to me that our brains are not meant for storage or to be offices. Our brains are meant for solving problems and for coming up with new ideas. In this interview, David Allen said that GTD does not help you create more time. It simply allows for more space in your brain to come up with creative solutions. We can’t do that when all the to-do lists are rattling in our head.

GTD also helps us be more present, because whenever we remember something we need to do, we simply write it down instantly, or feel assured that we already had captured it in the appropriate tool. It allows us to focus for longer periods of time, knowing that we are working on the right projects. It’s about building an external brain that we can trust to carry us forward towards our goals.

David Allen says, “You are not doing GTD if you are not doing your weekly reviews“. Which, I am happy to report, I have been religiously committed to since 2018.

There is still a room for a lot of improvement in the way I work and stay engaged with my notes and to-do lists. Doing this Live, however, got me more excited to work on my systems and making them work for me.

Reflections on GTD

Hello July

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Happy New Month!

Working in a monthly-sales-target environment makes me even more aware of the beginnings and ends of months. Since last year, I got used to resetting myself every month by doing the monthly review exercise in which I reflect on the wins, lessons learned and goals progress during the past month, and also plan for the month ahead by adding important dates on calendar, scheduling some events and online content like my podcast episodes.

Today marks the beginning of a new quarter of the year, which gets me to another whole level of reviews. I love doing the quarterly reviews, and as I concluded before in April, I will take 2 weeks to do it properly and reset my goals for the coming 90 days. This is the way I believe each quarter should start.

Since it’s the mid-year mark too, I may need to re-visit some of the things that inspired me at the beginning of the year like my mantra of the year which is Practice Focused Attention.

Also, July is my birthday month, which means fun ahead, especially that many family members and friends are visiting for the first time in 2 years with the pandemic finally withdrawing.

I used to buy online courses in July that I didn’t finish, and thus developed a limiting belief for a while that “I don’t finish what I start”, only to realize later that it was not about me but the timing of those courses with respect to my life. It was simply not the right season. Therefore, I vowed not to create audacious goals for July anymore and just enjoy the flow of summer and the heightened social life that will be temporary up until most people travel back before schools start.

In order to honor this special month, I made 2 lists, let go list and keep list.

In July I want to let go of…

  • Waking up at 5AM because I will be staying up late most days.
  • Regular posting on Instagram (apart from stories), I will take a break.
  • Digital Rules: I will not apply strict mode when using social media this month. Most of my digital rules became habits anyway, like no Instagram before I leave the house in the morning.

In July I will keep…

  • 15-minute morning meditation.
  • Daily one-sentence journal for my kids (I don’t like to see empty pages).
  • Five-minute gratitude journal.
  • Food journaling (I did not commit well in June).
  • Weekly 5-minute podcast episodes and of course newsletter.
  • Keep writing here at least 5 days a week. (Break in case of traveling only) read the update below

Doing less is a challenge for me. There are many items popping up in my head to add to the Keep List, however those are the only ones I want to track daily/weekly and the compass to a successful July.

Speaking of Doing Less, I might read that awesome book with the same title by Kate Northrup one more time to savor the season.

An Update:

It’s July 7th, and after reading the below email from Leo Babuta I felt this is exactly what I need. Therefore, I changed the point above about writing daily here. I am taking this month off. Anything I post would be a bonus.

I am still in the quarterly/birthday/mid-year reflective mode, plus summer fun family focused mode. Just to keep you in the picture, I am not taking off from everything, I still go to work every day.

See you soon.

Returning to Practices
I mentioned recently that I took the month of June off, and have just come back to work … what that means is restarting my regular routines & practices.

This has me reflecting on the act of re-starting something like a meditation practice, exercise routine, or work routine.

It can be tough for a lot of us when we get derailed and have to re-start. We can feel discouraged, because we have some idea that we should have not stopped or gotten interrupted, that something is wrong with us for not sticking to it (once again).

I say toss out that idea. It’s not so helpful.

Starting again is a part of the process. And the process is never over — you don’t form a habit or do a practice and then forget about it. You have to give it your focus, fully, and then give it your focus again when you get sidetracked. Just like returning to your breath in meditation after you’ve gotten distracted. Again and again, we come back.

Instead of thinking of it as a frustrating task to start again, we might think of it as returning home.

I wish you a continual returning home, for life.
gratefully,

Leo Babauta
Zen Habits

Hello July

Weekend Plans

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I imagined this Saturday going a whole different way but a spontaneous family outing idea changed that.

You see, spontaneity is something that still doesn’t come naturally to me. I love to know how my days would look like, especially weekends.

Here in Jordan, we still have complete lock-downs on Fridays (the first day of the weekend) and the weather was too cold last weekend, so saying no to this outing would have meant skipping 2 weekends in a row.

Moreover, creating family memories with my 2 kids is very important to me in my big picture goals. Being lighthearted, easy-going and fun is something I’d also like them to remember about me, therefore I said yes and went along for the ride.

Past me would have stayed home because that was the plan. If I was physically tired I still would have stayed home. In the future I still want to plan weekends ahead of time. Luckily, today I had the energy to both remember my goals and act on them when the chance presented itself.

I am glad I did.

Weekend Plans

Motion Vs. Action

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“Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.”

-James Clear

I love this idea so much by James Clear in Atomic habits. Reading it for the first time was a lightbulb moment for me. I do love my motion so much. I spend so much time planning and tracking. Being aware of the difference, however, helped me realize I may be acquiring clarity but not actually making progress towards my goals.

This week, after a super first quarter of the year, I gave myself permission to enjoy motion only. I spent my mornings doing the first quarterly review of the year on 2 different planners, mind you, plus re-thinking and re-writing of my goals for the second quarter, and simply reading. I did not record a new podcast episode. I did not create a mid-week post for Instagram. I just enjoyed the motions.

This on-purpose break is the exact thing I needed. I’ll make it happen more often, maybe this is how each quarter should actually start. As a result, I am definitely feeling more ready to jump into action again.

Motion Vs. Action